“FREE TO ROCK” – a documentary exposé, featuring Joanna and other Russian musicians, reveals to the world the heretofore unknown dismantling socio-political effect of “soft power,” as American Rock n’ Roll and the release of Red Wave contributed to the ending of the Cold War.

Out of genuine passion for Leningrad Rock and her love of the Russian people, Stingray globally proliferated Russian Rock n’ Roll and made her own unique contribution to the fall of the USSR and close of the Cold War.

The 25-year-old American singer Joanna Stingray played a major role in the fate of Sergei Kuryokhin and Leningrad rock. The stepdaughter of a successful gallery owner from Los Angeles, she came to Petersburg as a tourist and unexpectedly discovered a rich rock...READ MORE HERE

The history of Russian rock music could have been very different without Joanna Stingray. As a 24-year-old California clubber, she spent a week in the Soviet Union in 1984 and fell in love with the Leningrad underground rock scene. Joanna was friends with rock musicians, recorded songs with them, shot their videos and brought them clothes and instruments from the West. Her video footage, capturing young icons of Russian rock like Viktor Tsoi, Sergei Kuryokhin, Timur Novikov and Boris Grebenshchikov, is rare evidence of the golden era of the Soviet underground.​READ MORE HERE